Animations have become a popular digital marketing asset for different types of brands. It allows you to tell new and compelling stories in a way that catches an audience’s attention while also keeping them engaged. While it has been around for a long time and is becoming increasingly popular, animation is still underutilised as a marketing tool, especially when compared to video. If you have never used animation in your digital marketing strategy, we are going to discuss four styles of animations so that you have somewhere to start.
Traditional Animation
This is an animation style that you are much more likely to see in an old Disney movie. It is usually hand-drawn, frame by frame, and then these frames are scanned or filmed to create one continuous animation.
Because of how labour-intensive and expensive it is, traditional animation is not used much in digital marketing. However, some of its principles like character design and storyboarding are still in use. You will still see some animators use this style, but with the aid of technology to speed things along.
Vector-based Animation
This is one of the most popular animation styles in use today. It is a 2D design style, using lines and shading as its main components. Shading, lighting, and some manipulation techniques are used to make these types of animations look 3D, but what makes the 2D elements does not go away because they are 2D first.
2D animation is used in marketing where businesses and brands want to evoke strong emotions or pass complex information that would be difficult to understand otherwise. That said, you will still see 2D vector-based designs used in marketing similar products where there is no need for complex animation.
2D animation is also a great fit where a brand or business ways to make distribution easy or scale its campaign.
3D Animation
If you can rotate an object to see it from multiple angles, that is a 3D object. In 3D animation, animators first create 3D graphics in a 3D world or space (meaning there is depth unlike in 2D automation) and then animate them.
Creating 3D characters, objects and scenes puts you squarely in the world of computer-generated imagery or CGI.
While CGI produces amazing results, it is technically labour-intensive. This means that you need a sufficiently powerful computer to create these types of animations. Fortunately, some brands create dedicated machines for animation. For example, you can buy a Lenovo PC for animation that has the power and RAM required to run 3D animation software like Maya and Houdini.
Motion Graphics
Technically, motion graphics is a subgenre of animation and is used to provide additional information to an animation. You will see motion graphics used in lower thirds, animated typography and text, calls to action, title cards, and video transitions.
In most cases, you want to use 2D and 3D animation combined with motion graphics for animated marketing assets. Unless you have the budget for it, traditional animation is a lot less favourable than the other three options available to you.
Accepting Guest post for Write For Us Digital Marketing Niche.